Essay Summary: Cramped in a snow cave, Kantner reveals how the darkness of the arctic winter is both a friend and an enemy.

How can the darkness be both a friend and an enemy? (p. 141)

Darkness has "predictability" and it follows the clock where the storms and wind are unpredictable. The darkness also offers respite from the long summer hours. It can be an enemy by creating cabin fever and create depression, or as Kantner calls it, a "blackness" inside the skull.